2. THIS TALK
o General inequalities of knowledge
production & dissemination
o The emerging complexities of the digital
o Two cases of discoverability & visibility
A view from the global south, a marginal perspective
9. “The global economy is a dynamic and
often turbulent affair. It doesn’t produce a
simple dichotomy. It does produce
massive structures of centrality and
marginality, whose main axis is the
metropole-periphery, North-South
relationship.“
(Connell 2007, 2014)
10. INEQUALITIES ACROSS AND WITHIN
Hout Bay and Imizamo Yethu in Cape Town, South Africa in 2016
http://www.unequalscenes.com/hout-bay-imizamo-yethu
13. 1.53 % of GDP
1.96 % of GDP2.76 % of GDP
0.73 % of GDP
FUNDING
Gross domestic spending on R & D (2012)
figureshttps://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm
14. IT’S MORE THAN THE MONEY
What counts?
Reward systems
Legitimacy
Gatekeeping
16. TYPES OF RESEARCH
o Different types of research
• Different genres
• Different audiences
o A typology of research types
• Discovery – traditional empirical, generalizable explanations or theories
• Interpretive - interpretation of phenomena not search for generalizable explanations
• Applied – applied enquiry, problem solving, may include consultancy
• Integrative – use-inspired basic research
• Teaching and Learning – scholarship of T&L
(Kell and Czerniewicz 2016; Czerniewicz and Kell 2014)
17. REWARD SYSTEMS
o In South Africa the national department of
education (DHET) gives universities +/-
$13000 for every article published in
• The Sciences Citation Index of the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI)
• The Social Sciences Citation Index of the ISI
• The Arts and Humanities Citation Index of the ISI
• The International Bibliography of Social Sciences (IBSS)
• A list of approved South African Journals
o The majority of SA universities give a %
directly to the authors
18. CITATIONS
o Valorisation of citation counts in
academia
• Citations used for promotion
• Measure of reputation
o Citations have their uneven
geographies
• Citing those from the global north
• Keeping the networks closed
o Altmetrics’ slow acceptance
19. ACCESSIBILITY
o Research is generally not easily
accessible to those in the South
• works that are more easily found will
likely be more frequently cited
• 54% of respondents in SARUA universities said
research output exists; of these 90% said that
ready accessibility is hampered
• Budget cuts in library subscriptions
(Abrahams et al 2008)
22. WHO GETS PUBLISHED
o Of the articles published in international
peer-reviewed journals
• USA academics 30%
• Developing country academics 20%
• of which half from China, India, Brazil, Turkey,
Mexico
• Sub Saharan Africa 1% of total
(Hassan 2008)
23. A CASE IN POINT
Authorship per country AMJ, AMR, ASQ and JIBS (2006-2010),
Four high impact social science journals
(Hamann, 2012)
25. o At the same time Northern authors publish
about the South
• A study of 2 top African studies journals
1993 - 2013 found
• the percentage of articles by Africa-based
authors has declined
• not lower submission rates from Africa but low
and declining acceptance rates
• Africa-based scholars are systematically cited
less than others
(Briggs and Weathers, 2016)
26. WHO DECIDES?
“We editors seek a global status for our journals, but we
shut out the experiences and practices of those living in
poverty by our (unconscious) neglect. One group is
advantaged while the other is marginalised.”
Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet
Chan,2012,/www.slideshare.net/lesliechan/remapping-the-local-and-the-global
In short, international = global north
27. WHY THIS MATTERS
o Local knowledge
• Needs to be available to others in similar
conditions
• Is a necessary and often missing
contribution to global knowledge
o A plurality of knowledge/s is good for
science
• A knowledge production & dissemination
system that sidelines three quarters of the
world is bad for everyone
28. “African scholars face a critical choice between
sacrificing relevance for recognition, or
recognition for relevance”
(Nyamnjoh 2010)
30. The internet changed the nature of networks by
making them more inclusive and easy to
participate in
(Castells 1996)
31. (Lessig, 2003)
For the first time in a
millennium, we have a
technology to equalise the
opportunity that people
have to access and
participate in the
construction of knowledge
and culture, regardless of
their geographical placing.
33. Conceptualisation
Data collection
Data analysis
Findings
Engagement
Translation
Protocols
Literature reviews
BibliographiesProposals
Data sets
Conference papers
Audio records
Images
Recorded interviews
Books
Reports
Journal articles Technical papers
Notes
Presentations
Lectures
Interviews
Shared and shareable
e.g. social bookmarking,
Dynamic multimodal
versions
The rise of rich media
Data
Open
linked, curated,
shareable Metadata
Multiple modes
The “enhanced publication”
multimodal, hyperlinked
Open access mainstream
Emergence of the “megajournal”
New forms
Modes- visual & audio
lectures
New genres - ebooks,
open education resources
Changing, extending
audiences
(e.g. life long learners, global
reach)
Two way process
(e.g. citizen science)
Access
to all types of resources
New measures of impact
Altmetrics- use,
downloads, bookmarking
etc
Open processes
Increased visibility
Increased collaboration
Earlier access
Open science
Changing Scholarship
(Czerniewicz, 2013)
34. New opportunities to
collapse distance
enable easier cross-country collaborations
create possibilities for knowledge production & sharing
36. o Each stage can be analysed in terms of:
• Social relations – power relations, networks &
relationships
• Audiences – forms of scholar-to-scholar, scholar-
to- student and scholar-to-community
communication
• Forms – genres, platforms and modes (eg
linguistic, visual, aural and multimodal)
(Czerniewicz & Kell 2014; Kell and Czerniewicz 2016)
37. There is a danger that the
information revolution could
exacerbate sociospatial
segregation
(Castells, 1998)
and create ‘dual cities’ of
inhabitants that occupy vastly
different spheres of knowledge.
44. AFFORDABILITY: IT’S THE DATA, NOT THE DEVICE
o Affordability (5% monthly income)
• Entry level -100MB; maturing – 500MB; connected -2GB
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, 53% could afford access of only
20 MB, (enough for SMS & email)
https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/state-of-connectivity_3.pdf
45. The new currency: discoverability
If it is not online, it does not exist
If it can’t be found, it does not exist
Visibility is a requirement for participation
46. Why this matters
What is found online shapes what comes to be known
“Visibility and invisibility in material space are
increasingly being defined by prominence, ranking,
and presence on the Internet”
(Graham and Zook 2011)
47. SEARCH ENGINES
o The primary way that content is found
• By academics in all disciplines
• By NGOs
• By students
• BY professionals
(De Groote et al 2014, Catalano 2013, de Satgé, 2012, Waller 2011)
48. SEARCH ENGINES
o Co-producers of knowledge
o Surrogate experts
o Play a role as “switchers’ between
networks
o Engine’s social relations invisible
• Seem naturalised and normal
o Not neutral
• Reflect societal disparities
• Shaped by algorithms
(Halavais 2013; Van Dijck 2010, Rogers, 2009)
50. ALGORITHMS
o Page ranking
• “collective intelligence”
o Location
• Internet Protocol (IP) address provides country,
region, city, postal code, latitude and longitude,
time zone
o Social media
• Includes social media, eg Facebook likes and
Google +
o Personalization
• individual personalization, previously visited sites
• profile personalization, matches users with other
users with similar browsing histories
51. ALGORITHMS
o Shape what is found through
• prioritising, classifying, associating and
filtering information
o Mediate
o Create
filter bubbles
http://twiki.org/p/pub/Blog/BlogEntry201207x2/google-globe-search-3d.png
52. Browsers per country 2016
http://gs.statcounter.com/#all-browser-ww-monthly-201602-201602-map
60. THE INVESTIGATION
o Premises
• Poverty and inequality taken seriously in South
Africa, & beyond
• A great deal of work including academic
research being undertaken
• The outputs of this work important to many:
government, academia, civil society
• Access to information (data/knowledge) critical
to undertake work & address issues
(Czerniewicz & Wiens 2013)
61. THE INVESTIGATION
o How findable is the research & work on
poverty alleviation?
o What is found?
• Where the results come from and the extent to which South
African results appeared in the searches
• Which South African organisations / individuals appeared
• The rankings of the results, and similarities and differences
between the rankings
• The similarities and differences between Google and Google
Scholar results
64. FINDINGS
o Google search “poverty alleviation”
• No South African results
• The 3 South African participants' had no
localised SA based results.
o Google Scholar “poverty alleviation”
• One searcher had one SA result
66. WIKIPEDIA
o In academia
• Widely used by the general public, researchers
and students
• Wikipedia’s citation rates in scholarly publications
consistently increasing
• Papers & authors mentioned on Wikipedia have
higher academic impact
o In developing countries
• Wikipedia zero rating in 12+ developing
countries – better access
(Soules 2015; Shuai et al 2013; Casebourne et al 2012; Park, 2011; Okoli et al 2010; Eijkman, 2010 Lewandowski 2010; Giles 2005)
67. One result in both
Google “poverty alleviation South Africa” and
Google Scholar “poverty alleviation South Africa”
68. 65% referrals to the repository link through search engines
Among the top 10 search results was one which led to Wikipedia, which
then led to the article itself
Downloaded 2,356 times
69. Online access to single
article for 24 hours at a
cost of USD31.50
70. o Google Scholar Poverty Alleviation South Africa
• High % published in South Africa
• Many had “South Africa” in the title
• Two of the top 5 results from repositories
o Of the South African results
• Many from 7 universities, all of which were full text
• 8 of the 9 journals which appeared in the results
were “green” journals allowing self- archiving
71. CASE 2: CLIMATE CHANGE
A shared global problem
CC-BYhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/ojbyrne/2167696800
74. o Climate change
• Consequences matter world wide
• A new disciplinary field, scholarly
communication practices not yet
entrenched
• Different strategies promoted by
researchers from the North (mitigation) and
the South (adaptation)
• The ability to set research agendas critical
• Do new ICT-practices help do this?
75. o Analysis climate change publications
1980 – 2013:
• USA dominance of the field
• Other countries from the Global North
consistently in top 7
• Canada, Germany, England and France
• Major shift China’s rise to 2nd place in 2013
• South Africa fallen from 15th place to 24th
(Collyer, 2015)
76. An investigation into one climate change
research group (CCRG)
From the outside in and the inside out
Has their involvement helped to redraw
structurally embedded patterns of power, voice
and representation?
(Czerniewicz et al 2016)
77. THE INVESTIGATION
o Outside in
• Searching on Google Scholar
• Climate change
• Climate change South Africa
o Inside out
• Mapping the climate change group’s
online presence
• Interviews
79. o Searching for “climate change” (no South
Africa)
• Results largely uniform
• 83% same findings and rankings
• Authors found largely US and UK
• No results from South Africa, Africa or any
other developing countries
80. o Item ranked Number 1
• Cited 4337 x
• Google Scholar 1st results always highly
cited, hence ongoing cycle
• Is a multi-author paper
• Known to be linked to more citations
• Copies appear in 5 web locations, 3
being repositories
(Office of the Chief Scientist 2012; Smart & Bayer 1986)
81. o Genres
• largely technical reports
• only two (different) journals
• technical reports are an acceptable form
of research output in the climate change
field
• Google Scholar indexes “the sources that
scholars believe to be scholarly”.
(Levy 2014)
82. SEARCHING FOR
CLIMATE CHANGE SOUTH AFRICA
o Largely uniform results, 2 sequences
o Number 1 ranked result
• Nature
• Cited 4000+ times
• Appears online in 24 sites
83. “CLIMATE CHANGE SOUTH AFRICA”
o Number 1 ranked result
• South African Journal of Science
o Searching techniques matter!
85. Editorial oversight of publications for 10 ten results in
Google Scholar searches
“climate change South Africa”
GATEKEEPING
86. GATEKEEPING
Editorial oversight : countries by HDI
(Human Development Index)
(Northern and Southern researchers favour different strategies, different research agendas)
88. o CCRG researchers’ views
• Online presence takes time, money and
expertise
• Hard choices regarding how to use limited
resources
• Tensions between what makes a
contribution, what is academically
rewarded, what brings in funds
INSIDE OUT: CCRG ONLINE PRESENCE
89. o New opportunities and old reward systems
I want the visibility and impact of our work.
I have slaved over the research and the research report might
just gather dust on a shelf, no-one will ever read it. I believe
that the traditional metrics are limited …
I know that our research reports are not captured in those
systems. There are other people who look at research
differently.
I think things can still change.
o The consequences of online invisibility
So many Southern voices get lost so we have no choice but to listen
to the North because there is no alternative
91. In knowledge creation and dissemination
The online adds major complexities to the
abiding global inequalities of power and
resources
Open scholarship is only meaningful if
everyone can both access and participate
93. Active Open Source software developers
per thousand internet users
Study of 1.3million registered developers in SourceForge
(Van Engelhardt,S; et al 2010)
96. REFERENCES
Abrahams, L., Burke, M., Gray, E., & Rens, A. (2008). Opening access to knowledge in Southern African
universities. Study Series 2008, Southern African Regional Universities Association. Retrieved from
http://www.sarua.org/?q=publications/opening-access-knowledge-southern-african-universities.
Briggs, C ; Weathers, S (2016) Gender and Location in African Politics Scholarship: the Other White Man’s
Burden, African Affairs, London, first published online May 14, 2016 doi:10.1093/afraf/adw009
Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Vol. 1. 3 vols. The Information Age: Economy, Society
and Culture. Malden, MA; Oxford,: Blackwell
Castells, M. (1998) The Informational City is a Dual City: Can it be Reversed? In Schon, D, Sanyal, B. &
Mitchell, W (Eds.) High Technology and Low-Income Communities. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.
Catalano, A (2013) "Patterns of graduate students' information seeking behavior: a meta‐synthesis of the
literature", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 69 ( 2), pp.243 – 274
Chan, L (2012), Remapping the Global and Local in Knowledge Production, the Role of Open Access,
presentation at University of Cape Town 10 August 2012, http://www.slideshare.net/lesliechan/remapping-
the-local-and-the-global
Collyer, F. 2015. “Report For Rio, Study B Rio.” The Social Sciences and History School, Fundação Getulio
Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Connell, R. 2007. Southern Theory. The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Connell, R. 2014. Rethinking Gender from the South, Feminist Studies, 40,(3): 518-539
Czerniewicz, L. (2013), “Power and politics in a changing scholarly communication landscape”, proceedings
of the IATUL Conference, Cape Town, South Africa, 2013,
http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1982&context=iatul
Czerniewicz, L and Kell, C; (2014) A framework for analysing research types and practices,
in de Laat, M, McConnell, D, Ryberg, T & Jones, C (Editors) Proceedings of the Ninth International
Conference on Networked Learning 2014 , Edinburgh, April 2014
97. Czerniewicz, L, and K Wiens. 2013. “The Online Visibility of South African Knowledge: Searching for Poverty
Alleviation.” The African Journal of Information and Communication 13: 1–12.
Czerniewicz, L; Goodier, S; Morrell, R (2016) Southern knowledge online? Climate change research
discoverability and communication practices, Information, Communication & Society, 2016 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1168473; Published online: 11 Apr 2016
De Groote, S; Shultz, M; Blecic, D (2014) Information-seeking behavior and the use of online resources: a
snapshot of current health sciences faculty, J Med Libr Assoc. 2014 Jul; 102(3): 169–176,
doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.102.3.006
de Satgé, R. (2012). Assessing the need for a poverty information service. Report commissioned for the
South African Treasury’s Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development, (unpublished).
Florida, R (2005) "The world is spiky. 2005." The Atlantic Monthly 296 (3): 48-51.
Graham, M and Zook, M (2011) Visualising Global Cyberscapes: Mapping User-generated placemarks in
Journal of Urban Technology, 18 (1): 115-132, Special Issue: ICT and Global Urban Networks Volume Doi
10.1080/10630732.2011.578412
Halavais, Alexander. 2013. Search Engine Society. Polity Press.
Hamann, R (2012) Balancing the academic terms of trade: The paradox of publishing in top-tier journals from
the periphery (working paper)
Hassan, M, 2008, One World of Science, Editorial, Science Vol. 322 – 24
Horton, R (2003) “Medical journals: evidence of bias against the diseases of poverty” Commentary ., The
Lancet, Vol 361, 1 March 2003
Internet.org. (2014). State of Connectivity (2014): A Report on Global Internet Access.
https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/state-of-connectivity_3.pdf
Kell, C and Czerniewicz, (2016, in press) Visibility of Scholarly Research and Changing Research
Communication Practices: A Case Study from Namibia in Esposito, A (Ed) Research 2.0 and the Impact of
Digital Technologies on Scholarly Inquiry, IGI Global
98. Lessig L (2003) , An information society: Free or feudal? International Telecommunication Union, World–
WSIS-PREPCOM-2, http://www.itu.int/itunews/issue/2003/03/visionaries.html
Levy, S (2014) The Gentleman Who Made Scholar , Backchannel, https://backchannel.com/the-gentleman-
who-made-scholar-d71289d9a82d, Oct 17, 2014
Meeker, M (2016) Internet Trends Report, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers ,1 June 2016,
http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/2016-internet-trends-report/10-
KPCB_INTERNET_TRENDS_2016_PAGE
Nyamnjoh, F. (2010). Open Access and open knowledge production. The African Journal of Information and
Communication 10: 67-72, Retrieved from http://link.wits.ac.za/journal/ AJIC10-Nyamnjoh.pdf.
Office of the Chief Scientist. 2012. “Health of Australian Science.” Canberra: Australian Government.
Rogers, Richard. 2009. “The Googlization Question and the Inculpable Engine.” In Deep Search: The Politics
of Search Engines Beyond Google. Edison USA: Transaction Publishers.
Shuai , X; Jiang , Z; Liu , X; Bollen , J (2013) A comparative study of academic and Wikipedia ranking ,
Proceedings of the 13th ACM/IEEE-CS joint conference on Digital libraries, ACM New York, NY, USA pp 25-
28
Smart, J, and A Bayer (1986). “Author Collaboration and Impact: A Note on Citation Rates of Single and
Multiple Authored Articles.” Scientometrics 10: 297–305.
Soules, A (2015) "Faculty perception of Wikipedia in the California State University System", New Library
World, Vol. 116 Iss: 3/4, pp.213 - 226
von, Engelhardt, S; Freytag Andreas, and Schulz Christoph ( 2013). "On the Geographic
Allocation of Open Source Software Activities." International Journal of Innovation in the Digital
Economy (IJIDE) no. 4 (2):25-39. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/jide.2013040103
Van Dijck, José. 2010. “Search Engines and the Production of Academic Knowledge.” International Journal of
Cultural Studies 13 (6): 574–92.
Waller, V. (2011). Not just information: Who searches for what on the search engine Google? Journal of the
American Society for Information Science, 62(4), 761-775. Wiley http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/asi.214
Notes de l'éditeur
figures https://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm
By 2014 China 2.05 and Ireland 1.52